Count Zeyd of Assab

Count Zeyd of Assab (1040-) was the count of Assab in present-day Eritrea.

Biography
Zeyd of Assab was born in 1040 to the House of Afari, a Sunni Muslim dynasty of Ethiopians. Zeyd became the count of Assab, the present-day port city of Aseb, Eritrea. Zeyd was one of the Muslim rulers on the Horn of Africa, and he came into conflict with the neighboring kingdom of Axum, a Jewish nation that declared a holy war on Assab on 4 June 1067. Zeyd gained the support of fellow Muslim ruler King Abdirahman of Berbera in his war, which soon bogged down into a stalemate between the two sides, as the Axumites did not have enough men to have the advantage over Zeyd's besieged garrisons.